1968

… For me this is a painful subject. Russia and the Ukraine are united in my blood, my heart, my thoughts. But from friendly contact with Ukrainians in the camps over a long period I have learned how sore they feel. Our generation cannot avoid paying for the mistakes of generations before it.

Nothing is easier than stamping your foot and shouting: “That's mine!” It is immeasurably harder to proclaim: “You may live as you please.” We cannot, in the latter end of the twentieth century, live in the imaginary world in which our last, not very bright Emperor came to grief. Surprising though it may be, the prophecy of our Vanguard Doctrine [i.e., Marxism-Leninism—Ed.] that nationalism would fade has not come true. In the age of the atom and of cybernetics, it has for some reason blossomed afresh. Like it or not, the time is at hand when we must pay out on all our promissory notes guaranteeing self-determination and independence—pay up of our own accord, and not wait to be burned at the stake, drowned in rivers, or beheaded. We must prove our greatness as a nation not by the vastness of our territory, not by the number of peoples under our tutelage, but by the grandeur of our actions. And by the depth of our tilth in the lands that remain when those who do not wish to live with us are gone.

The Ukraine will be an extremely painful problem. But we must realize that the feelings of the whole people are now at white heat. Since the two peoples have not succeeded over the centuries in living harmoniously, it is up to us to show sense. We must leave the decision to the Ukrainians themselves—let federalists and separatists try their persuasions. Not to give way would be foolhardy and cruel. And the gentler, the more tolerant, the more careful to explain ourselves we are now, the more hope there will be of restoring unity in the future.

Let them live their own lives, let them see how it works. They will soon find that not all problems are solved by secession. (The fact that the ratio between those who consider themselves Russian and those who consider themselves Ukrainian varies from province to province of the Ukraine will cause many complications. A plebiscite in each province, and afterward a helpful and considerate attitude to those who wish to move, may be necessary. Not all of the Ukraine in its present official Soviet borders is really Ukrainian. Some of the left-bank provinces undoubtedly feel drawn to Russia. As for Crimea, Khrushchev’s decision to hand it over to Ukraine was totally arbitrary. And what about Carpathian Rus’ [Ruthenia]? That will serve as a test, too: while demanding justice for themselves, how just will the Ukrainians be to Carpathian Russians?)

1981

… There is no doubt that the Russian-Ukrainian question is one of the major questions of modernity and, certainly, of crucial importance to our peoples. But, in my view, the degree to which flames of passion are being fanned around it, and the resulting fever pitch, are truly ruinous.

[…]

I have repeatedly stated, and reiterate here, that no one should retain anyone else by force, none of the antagonists should resort to coercion towards the other side, nor towards one’s own side, nor to a whole people or any small minority it encompasses, for each minority contains, in turn, its own minority. And the wishes of a group of fifty people should be heard and heeded just the same as the wishes of fifty million. Whatever the circumstances, the local viewpoint should be recognized and implemented. And therefore, all problems can only truly be settled by the local population and not in remote émigré disputes tainted by misshapen emotions.

[…]

I am particularly pained by the fierce intolerance that rages around the Russian-Ukrainian question (ruinous to both nations and beneficial only to their enemies) because of my own mixed Russian-Ukrainian origin, and because I was raised under the combined influence of both these cultures, and because I have never experienced, nor do I now, any antagonism between the two. On various occasions I have written and publicly spoken of Ukraine and her people, of the tragedy of the Ukrainian famine. I have quite a few old friends in Ukraine and, to me, the sufferings of Russians and Ukrainians alike invariably occupy equal space in the rows of Communist-induced suffering. In my heart’s perception there is no room for a Russian-Ukrainian conflict and should, God forbid, the issue ever come to a head I can safely affirm: never, under any circumstances, shall I take part in a Russian-Ukrainian clash or allow my sons to do so—no matter what reckless hotheads might try to drag us there.

1990

A word to the Ukranians and the Belorussians

I am well-nigh half Ukrainian by birth, and I grew up to the sound of Ukrainian speech. And I spent the greater part of my front-line service in sorrowful Belorussia, where I became poignantly attached to its melancholy, sparse landscape and its gentle people.

Thus, I am addressing both nations not as an outsider but as one of their own.

And, in any case, our people came to be divided into three branches by the terrible calamity of the Mongol invasion, and by Polish colonization.⁹ All the talk of a separate Ukrainian people existing since something like the ninth century and possessing its own non-Russian language is a recently invented falsehood. We all sprang from precious Kiev, from which “the Russian land took its beginning” (as Nestor puts it in his chronicle),¹⁰ and from which we received the light of Christianity. The same princes ruled over all of us: Yaroslav the Wise apportioned Kiev, Novgorod, and the entire expanse stretching from Chemigov to Ryazan, Murom, and Beloozero among his sons; Vladimir Monomakh was simultaneously Prince of Kiev and Prince of Rostov and Suzdal;¹¹ the administration of the Church exhibited the same kind of unity. The Muscovite state was of course created by the same people who made up Kievan Rus. And the Ukrainians and Belorussians in Poland and Lithuania considered themselves Russian and resisted Polonization and conversion to Catholicism. The return of these lands to Russia was at the time universally perceived as an act of reunification.

It is indeed painful and humiliating to recall the directives issued during the reign of Alexander II (in 1863 and 1876), when the use of the Ukrainian language was banned, first in journalism and then in belles-lettres as well. But this prohibition did not remain in force for long, and it was an example of the unenlightened rigidity in questions of administrative and Church policy that prepared the ground for the collapse of the Russian state structure.

However, it is also true that the fussily socialistic Ukrainian Rada of 1917 was created by an agreement among politicians and was not elected by popular vote.¹²  And when the Rada broke with the federation, declaring the Ukraine's secession from Russia, it did so without soliciting the opinion of the population at large.

I have had occasion to respond to emigre Ukrainian nationalists who keep trying to convince America that “communism is a myth; it is really the Russians who are seeking world domination, not the communists” (and, indeed, it is “the Russians” who are supposed to have seized China and Tibet, as is stated in a law passed by the U. S. Senate three decades ago, and still on the books).¹³ Communism is the kind of myth of which both Russians and Ukrainians got a firsthand taste in the torture chambers of the Cheka from 1918 onward. The kind of myth that confiscated even seed grain in the Volga region and brought twenty-nine drought-ridden Russian provinces to the murderous famine of 1921–22. The same myth that later thrust the Ukraine into the similarly pitiless famine of 1932–33. As common victims of the communist-imposed collectivization forced upon us all by whip and bullet, have we not been bonded by this common bloody suffering?

As late as 1848, Galicians in Austria-Hungary referred to their national council as the “Chief Russian Rada.” But then in a severed Galicia, and with active Austrian encouragement, a distorted Ukrainian language was produced, unrelated to popular usage and chock-full of German and Polish words. This was followed by the attempt to force Carpatho-Russians away from their habit of using the Russian language, and by the temptations of radical Pan-Ukrainian separatism, which manifests itself among the leaders of today's emigration in bursts of farcical ignorance (such as the assertion that St. Vladimir “was a Ukrainian”)¹⁴ or reaches lunatic vehemence in statements such as: “Let communism live so long as the Muscovites perish.”

How can we fail to share the pain and anguish over the mortal torments that befell the Ukraine in the Soviet period? But does that justify the ambition to lop the Ukraine off from a living organism (including those regions which have never been part of the traditional Ukraine: the “wild steppe” of the nomads—the later “New Russia”—as well as the Crimea, the Donbas area,¹⁵ and the lands stretching east almost to the Caspian Sea)? If we are to take the “self-determination of peoples” seriously, then it follows that a nation must determine its fate for itself It is a question that cannot be decided without a national plebiscite.

To separate off the Ukraine today would mean to cut across the lives of millions of individuals and families: the two populations are thoroughly intermingled; there are entire regions where Russians predominate; many individuals would be hard put to choose between the two nationalities; many others are of mixed origin, and there are plenty of mixed marriages (marriages which have indeed never been viewed as “mixed”). There is not even a hint of intolerance between Russians and Ukrainians on the level of the ordinary people.

Brothers! We have no need of this cruel partition. The very idea comes from the darkening of minds brought on by the communist years. Together we have borne the suffering of the Soviet period, together we have tumbled into this pit, and together, too, we shall find our way out.

An impressive roster of prominent names has been produced at the intersection of our two cultures over the last two centuries. As Mikhail Dragomanov has phrased it, the cultures are “indivisible, yet unmixable.” An avenue must be opened—amicably and joyfully—for the free manifestation of Ukrainian and Belorussian cultures not only on their two territories but among the Great Russians as well. No forced Russification (but no forced Ukrainization either. as began in the late 1920s). There must be an untrammeled development of parallel cultures and school instruction in either language, according to the parents' choice.

Of course, if the Ukrainian people should genuinely wish to separate, no one would dare to restrain them by force. But the area is very heterogeneous indeed, and only the local population can determine the fate of a particular locality, while every ethnic minority created by this process in a given district must count upon the same kind of forbearance toward itself.

All the above holds fully for Belorussia as well, except that the passions of separatist extremism have never been stirred up in that land.

And finally let us bow our heads before the Ukraine and Belorussia in recognition of the Chernobyl disaster. It was brought about by the careerists and fools generated by the Soviet system, and we must help set things right to the extent that we are able to do so.

1994

FORBES: Tension is mounting between Russia and the now independent Ukraine, with the West strongly backing Ukrainian territorial integrity. Henry Kissinger argues that Russia will always threaten the interests of the West, no matter what kind of government it has.

SOLZHENITSYN: Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, [historian] Richard Pipes and many other American politicians and publicists are frozen in a mode of thought they developed a long time ago. With unchanging blindness and stubbornness they keep repeating and repeating this theory about the supposed age-old aggressiveness of Russia, without taking into consideration today's reality.

Well, what about Ukraine? Hasn't Russia made threats toward several of the former U.S.S.R. member states?

Imagine that one not very fine day two or three of your states in the Southwest, in the space of 24 hours, declare themselves independent of the U.S. They declare themselves a fully sovereign nation, decreeing that Spanish will be the only language. All English-speaking residents, even if their ancestors have lived there for 200 years, have to take a test in the Spanish language within one or two years and swear allegiance to the new nation. Otherwise they will not receive citizenship and be deprived of civic, property and employment rights.

What would be the reaction of the United States? I have no doubt that it would be immediate military intervention.

But today Russia faces precisely this scenario. In 24 hours she lost eight to 10 purely Russian provinces, 25 million ethnic Russians who have ended up in this very way—as “undesirable aliens.” In places where their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers have lived since way back—even from the 17th century—they face persecution in their jobs and the suppression of their culture, education and language. Meanwhile, in Central Asia, those wishing to leave are not permitted to take even their personal property. The authorities tell them, “There is no such concept as ‘personal property’!”

And in this situation “imperialist Russia” has not made a single forceful move to rectify this monstrous mess. Without a murmur she has given away 25 million of her compatriots—the largest diaspora in the world!

You see Russia as the victim of aggression, not as the aggressor.

Who can find in world history another such example of peaceful conduct? And if Russia keeps the peace in the single most vital question that concerns her, why should one expect her to be aggressive in secondary issues?

With Russia in chaos, it does sound a bit far-fetched to see her as an aggressor.

Russia today is terribly sick. Her people are sick to the point of total exhaustion. But even so, have a conscience and don't demand that—just to please America—Russia throw away the last vestiges of her concern for her security and her unprecedented collapse. After all, this concern in no way threatens the United States.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski disagrees. He argues that the U.S. must defend the independence of Ukraine.

\In 1919, when he imposed his regime on Ukraine, Lenin gave her several Russian provinces to assuage her feelings. These provinces have never historically belonged to Ukraine. I am talking about the eastern and southern territories of today's Ukraine.

Then, in 1954, Khrushchev, with the arbitrary capriciousness of a satrap, made a “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine. But even he did not manage to make Ukraine a “gift” of Sevastopol, which remained a separate city under the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. central government. This was accomplished by the American State Department, first verbally through Ambassador Popadiuk in Kiev and later in a more official manner.

Why does the State Department decide who should get Sevastopol? If one recalls the tactless declaration of President Bush about supporting Ukrainian sovereignty even before the referendum on that matter, one must conclude that all this stems from a common aim: to use all means possible, no matter what the consequences, to weaken Russia.

Why does independence for Ukraine weaken Russia?

As a result of the sudden and crude fragmentation of the intermingled Slavic peoples, the borders have torn apart millions of ties of family and friendship. Is this acceptable? The recent elections in Ukraine, for instance, clearly show the [Russian] sympathies of the Crimean and Donets populations. And a democracy must respect this.

I myself am nearly half Ukrainian. I grew up with the sounds of Ukrainian speech. I love her culture and genuinely wish all kinds of success for Ukraine—but only within her real ethnic boundaries, without grabbing Russian provinces. And not in the form of a “great power,” the concept on which Ukrainian nationalists have placed their bets. They are acting out and trumpeting a cult of force, persistently inflating Russia into the image of an “enemy.” Militant slogans are proclaimed. And the Ukrainian army is being indoctrinated with the propaganda that war with Russia is inevitable.

For every country, great-power status deforms and harms the national character. I have never wished great power status for Russia, and do not wish it for the United States. I don't wish it for Ukraine. She would not be able to perform even the cultural task required to achieve great power status: In her current borders, 63% of the population consider Russian to be their native language, a number three times larger than the number of ethnic Russians. And all these people will have to be re-educated in the Ukrainian language, while the language itself will have to be raised to international standards and usage. This is a task that would require over 100 years.

2006

MOSCOW NEWS: What is your perspective on the situation in Ukraine? In this context, what do you think about the problem of the division of the Russian nation (the largest divided nation in modern Europe)? Should Russia—if not politically, at least intellectually—ponder the possibility of reunification of ethnic Russians and Russian lands if Ukraine joins the EU and especially NATO?

SOLZHENITSYN: I am pained by what has been going on in Ukraine—ever since the 1991 referendum. The fanatical suppression and persecution of the Russian language (which, according to previous polls, was used as the main language by over 60 percent of Ukraine's population) is simply an act of atrocity that is aimed against Ukraine’s own cultural perspective. Vast tracts of land, which have never been part of historical Ukraine, e.g., Novorossia, Crimea and the entire southeastern region, have been forcibly incorporated into the modern Ukrainian state and into its policy of acquiring NATO membership at any cost. Throughout Yeltsin's term in office, not a single meeting that he had with any of the Ukrainian presidents had gone without capitulation and concessions to them. Pushing the Black Sea Fleet out of Sevastopol (the city was never ceded to Ukraine, not even under Khrushchev) is an outrageous humiliation of the entire 19th- and 20th-century Russian history.

Under these conditions, Russia must not cast Ukraine’s multimillion Russian population to the whims of fate, abandoning it, and cutting off all links with it.